A wide-ranging and rambling blog post at 1 in the morning.

[alexandraerin]

It's kind of weird being kind of famous. That's my thought for the day. Folks I've never met stop my e-boyfriend on the street and ask him how I am. Those who've read my more intimate works could probably guess more about my sexual predilections than many of the people I've actually had sex with. Odd realizations.

I've set a productivity goal for myself this week. I'm not going to share it until I know if I made it or not. I've discovered that I need goals to keep my motivation up when spoons are in short supply, but announcing them is tantamount to self-sabotage.

My "new" desktop computer is indeed dead on arrival. I have a return authorization from Geeks.com that I'm going to be taking care of on Wednesday, when my roommate is off work, and then... well, advertised turnaround is either 5-7 business days or 7-10 business days. Frustrating. I'll reserve judgment on the company until the whole thing's finished, though. Given the timeframe, I think I'm going to go ahead and get Fantasy In Miniature set the rest of the way up using my roommate's computer for the laying of out.

My other replacement electronic, the Palm Pre, is awesome. I had some doubts about the lack of immediately available office software, but the memo function is sufficient for writing. I wasn't sure it would be, since it's dressed up to look like Post-It notes, but it can handle story-length documents just fine. The Google Calendar integration is outstanding... totally transparent two-way sync, which is nice, because I'm far more comfortable tapping my reminders into a phone than I am going onto Google Calendar. And with the reminder stored in both places, even if I forget to charge my phone (or misplace it), I still got my reminders in my email (including the one to charge the phone). It's very, very helpful.

I'm very, very excited about things that are coming down the pipeline for Dungeons and Dragons. Yes, yes, I know I made a separate blog so you all wouldn't have to put up with this, but it's a bit depressing to deal with since I lost the ability to host my games, so you're going to get my squee here for right now. Suffice it to say that not only do I think 4E was a more fun and better designed product than 3.0 at launch, but I predict that when Player's Handbook 3 comes out next year, the game is... well, it's going to go from squared to cubed. This is just based on stuff that has been teased/tested through Dragon: the hybrid rules, the skill power rules. In terms of flexibility, in terms of the range of potential character possibilities, in terms of being able to play a character concept rather than a character class... and with the computerized Character Generator obviating the need to buy every book that comes out and memorize every detail of them in order to bring your characters to life. Even with just the playtest version of the hybrid rules with material for the fully released classes at the time, you can create some truly innovative characters. I'm really looking forward to being able to mix and match from the full suite of classes.

Fundraiser's been going well. I think it's +$60 from the last time I a tweeted a new total. It's been more of a steady stream than a huge overnight burst, which is exactly what I've been looking for. Lots of it's in the form of new sponsorships, which is also what I was hoping for. I'm going to need to bite the bullet and get the new names added to the list, even though it means I'm going to have to start a new spreadsheet for it. That will probably happen Wednesday, though it might be on the weekend. Thanks to everyone who's participated.

I'm pretty sure the third story's goal has been met. I'm starting to get sleepy so I'm not entirely sure. I'll edit this tomorrow if I'm wrong, but I'm almost positive it has been. It will be another fun one to write.

karnythia's auction is accepting bids through the 31st. The bid was at $30, last time I looked. You can help a friend of popelizbet keep doing awesome things for people and get your name in an Adele story.

Comments

[moofable.livejournal.com]

In fairness, asking how a SO is tends to be a common sort of small talk.

Other Stuff

[ferwe.livejournal.com]

I believe you said you would not be responding to PMs, so I'll post this here, even though it really isn't relevant to what's above.

I just finished the book Smart Girls Two (http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Girls-Two-Psychology-Giftedness/dp/0910707251) by Barbara A. Kerr and wanted to recommend it to you. I think you would find it both interesting and helpful. I think it also has some relevance to "Tales of MU," but that's for you to decide.

If you want to discuss this further, please feel free to contact me in any way you wish.

Question on the 4E System

[baphomet26.livejournal.com]

Hey.

I am not closely familiar with the 4E D&D System, but i am with the previous editions.

I have recently looked over the Quickstart rules and the charakter builder of the 4E and i noticed something about it. Every single one of the powers deals damage.

In the previous editions there were a lot of support spells and powers wich could be directed art allies and/or was intendes for non-combat-use (such as the fly spell, the knock spell, various movement and portal spells, the traceless step powers of the ranger and druid and all the spells and abilitys intended for social interaction or just overcoming the dangers of nature and travel).

Now those abilitys seem to be widerangely missing and class ablitys seem to fokus only on winning fights. While D&D has always been (in comparison to other systems such as WoD, Call of Cuthulu or Shadowrun) a very battle-heavy gave it seems to me now that most other elements of roleplaying have vanishted from the gamemechanics, wich in my eyes discurages non-battle solutions and more theatrical gamestiles.

Of course this can be overcome by fokusing on those elements outside of the game system, but the reasons to let even more non-battle elements fall out of the mechanics eludes me.

Could someone give me a perspektive on how the corespondance between the new 4E Edition and the completaly non-battle aspekts of roleplaying?

I'm mainly asking because i am contemplating about wether or not to purchase the 4E Books, since i am a very theatrical player and DM sometimes spending holes sessions without a battle taking place.

(p.s. excuse my spelling mistakes, since my mother tounge is german.)

Re: Question on the 4E System

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

You have put your finger on one of the major design changes for 4E, though it's not quite as you've described.

Powers are divided into two categories: attacks and utilities. What you're looking at are all attack powers. Very nearly all of the do damage, though some of them don't and for some character classes the damage is just a small bonus compared to what the attack power's main focus is (moving enemies or allies to gain tactical advantages, protecting allies, giving bonuses, etc.) The utility powers are where you will find the sorts of "support" abilities that potentially have immediate combat applications. This doesn't mean that they can only be used in combat, but if they're not something that you can pull out in a dangerous fast-paced situation and do, it won't be rendered as a power.

The support spells in general have been scaled down to avoid the tendency in previous editions of battles being won or lost based on what your cleric and wizard do before the fight starts and then "going nova" at the start of combat, blowing through their big attacks. Now a spell of protection is more likely to be an immediate interrupt that you cast when your ally is threatened, negating or countering that one attack and maybe protecting them for the following turn, instead of something you cast at the start of combat to protect them until it's dispelled. The focus is more on teamwork and how different characters can work together, which makes combat more interesting than the old fashioned "stat battle" where you just keep directly attacking every turn until the enemy is dead.

Things like portal spells, knock, overland travel, and divination spells are still there. They're just handled separately from powers, as "rituals".

As for the question of whether or not 4E would suit your style of play: what kind of game mechanics do you need for roleplaying? What rules do you need to be a very theatrical player and to play in or run a session without battle? 4E's design philosophy is to use rules to make combat exciting and cinematic (which I think it succeeds in) but have the rules get out of the way of roleplaying.

To give you an example, if you're playing as a Shaman, you have a spirit companion. The rules defining what your spirit companion can do in combat are very well defined. Outside of combat? Almost no rules. It's suggested that your spirit companion is a primal animal spirit that relates to your build (protector = bear, hunter = cat, watcher = eagle), but that's utterly a "special effect". It can manifest differently to show its mood or your mood. It can be the literal spirit of an ancestor of yours or a former mentor. It doesn't matter what you say it is and how you interact with it outside of combat, rules-wise. It's a very flexible piece of characterization for a player.

Likewise the rules on familiars for arcane characters. The rules are very strictly formulated so that a familiar doesn't become a remote controlled third hand you can use to shortcut any number of puzzles and traps, but the book which introduces them makes it very clear that the rules aren't intended to hamstring creativity.

Even the attack powers that characters have are subject to creativity in interpretation, leading to theatrical actions in combat. For example, one of the Bard attack powers is "vicious mockery"... you insult your opponent, backing the insult with magic. You can just say "I use vicious mockery on the orc.", which isn't much different from saying "I attack the orc." or "I cast magic missile on the orc."

But playing a Bard and having a power that's based around mocking your opponent practically screams "roleplaying opportunity", doesn't it?

Likewise the rulebooks encourage you to customize how you visualize attack spells and flashy attack moves in order to make them more personal to your character.

thy for the advice, but as always one could use some more

[baphomet26.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the overlook.
I think it will be best to search out a 4E round to check up on how well i can personaly use this outside-the-rules-freedom to my gaming stile.

I have made a good experience of the phenomen you discribe with the "Earthdawn" system. It also has very little rules with a few usable "special powers". It also hat a very wide space for player-customisation. That led to a very nice game-pace, bringing out more allover creativity wich is often not the case with more complex systems (for example a german rpg system called "Das schwarze Auge", "The dark eye" in english, wich could never get succesfull outside my country as only germans can stomach its bureaucracy).

The problem with this would be that most of the german D&D players i know are stil using E3.5. My english is well enough to play online but i've never done that before, beeing a face to face player untouched by the MMORPG development of the last years.

Could you propose some good posibilitys to join such an online round and discribe the necessitys for such a play and how well the gameflow can develop without the players and the DM facing each other?